1968 Camaro Project Track Rat Back On Track - g-Link Install 101

After a “Brief” Hiatus, We’re Once Again Wrenching on Track Rat, Our ’68 Camaro Project.

1. Our roller was rust-free, but gobs of Bondo hid a shoddy quarter-panel replacement. Another bummer was finding the “rebuilt 350” was really just a 305 rebuilt with a can of spray paint. On the plus side, the Camaro came with a ton of new parts. By running the numbers, we found it was an original 327 car shipped in Seafrost Green.

To the rest of the world, magazine project cars seem to lead a charmed life. They go together smoothly with none of the drama that the average gearhead seems to have to deal with. Well, we’re here to tell you that’s a big lie. The cars we build in these pages experience the same hiccups and issues as the cars you build. Such is the case with our ’68, dubbed Project Track Rat. Bought for $6,000 off eBay, it was a decent roller that we later found had more than a few hidden issues. Namely, the right rear quarter had been replaced. And not just the quarter-panel. The entire rear quarter of the car was actually from a ’67. It’s amazing what a few cans of body filler can hide. We replaced the mangled sheetmetal, added a new framerail, and soon Track Rat was looking good. In fact, it was almost ready for the paint booth at Best of Show Coach Works in Escondido, California, when a friend of ours (Cris Gonzalez of JCG Customs) had an idea to stretch the quarters. Now, he had done this before on some ’69 Camaros and it looked killer, but we found out the hard way that the body lines of the ’68 and ’69 are nowhere close to being the same. At first we thought the experiment went great, but as we worked on the quarters, the proportions were just too far off. After noodling out the problem with Cris, he came up with a new way to do the quarters for the more curvaceous ’67s and ’68s, and eventually the rear of the car was reworked and looking right. That little detour, combined with other aspects of life, cost us almost two years. We’re pretty sure more than a few of you can relate.

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But we’re not here to dwell on the past. We have a Camaro to build, and once again the project is moving full speed ahead. In the end, we hope to have a Camaro that’s as fun to take to the dragstrip as it is to drive around town or on any road course.

With the body now looking good, it was time to get our project to roller status, and that meant installing our Chassisworks g-Link Canted-4-Bar suspension system. This design uses four individual arms, or links, to position the rear axle under the car. It doesn’t require a Panhard bar, which saves room and weight. The Chassisworks system is also adjustable so we’ll be able to dial in just the right geometry for whatever sort of track we happen to be blasting down. So without further delay, it's time get this Camaro built and on the road.

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1968 Camaro Project Track Rat Back On Track - g-Link Install 101

1. Our roller was rust-free, but gobs of Bondo hid a shoddy quarter-panel replacement. Another bummer was finding the “rebuilt 350” was really just a 305 rebuilt with a can of spray paint. On the plus side, the Camaro came with a ton of new parts. By running the numbers, we found it was an original 327 car shipped in Seafrost Green.

1. Our roller was rust-free, but gobs of Bondo hid a shoddy quarter-panel replacement. Another bummer was finding the “rebuilt 350” was really just a 305 rebuilt with a can of spray paint. On the plus side, the Camaro came with a ton of new parts. By running the numbers, we found it was an original 327 car shipped in Seafrost Green.

2. In the first stretch, JCG sliced the quarter down the center body line and pulled the panel outward, adding pieces to fill the resulting gaps. When they redid the quarters, 80 percent of the skins were used from National Parts Depot (NPD) and Cris attached them to the flat area just below the C-pillars. This gave us the “widebody” look we were after without distorting the shape of the Camaro. Here you can see where the new quarter was attached before being sent back to Best of Show Coach Works (BOS) so they could work their metal magic.

3. In the process of the stretch, the body lines became a bit “lost” and undefined. They also angled slightly up toward the wheel center due to the lip of the wheelhouse being pulled upward. After many hours of bodywork, Dick Kvamme and Jon Lindstrom at BOS were able to get all the lines looking killer. You wouldn’t believe how many cases of brew this cost us.

4. With the back of the Camaro fixed, we could then start fitting the new NPD fenders. To do this we needed to toss the Chassisworks subframe under the car, bolt on the Autorad radiator core support, and square everything up. The fenders fit surprising well.

5. After bodyworking the fenders a bit, it was time to install the Anvil carbon-fiber hood, with Eddie Motorsports billet hinges and lower valance. With all the parts installed, BOS will be able to get the metal and carbon panels fitting perfectly.

6. And here’s how Track Rat sits at the time of the rear suspension install. It almost looks like a car now. The big question is which car will be done first, Track Rat or Orange Krate?

7. If you don’t have a rearend housing then the most painless way to go is to order a FAB9 housing from Chassisworks with all the brackets already welded in place. A while back we took our housing over to Currie Enterprises and had them add in all the guts. If you already have a housing, Chassisworks offers an easy-to-use fixture to accurately position the upper brackets for welding along with lower brackets that are secured with U-bolts to the leaf spring pads.

8. The g-Link system’s cradle is referred to as being “self-positioning.” It pulls this off by utilizing existing factory undercarriage features to ensure it’s precisely located. Due to the cradle’s crossbar, it also aids in chassis stiffening.

9. After bolting together the cradle assembly, BOS used pole jacks to hold the cradle brackets in place on the framerails, but you could also use C-clamps. BOS then measured from the flat, vertical section of the undercarriage to the lowest corner of the shock mount bracket. The ideal number is 10.5 inches. This can differ slightly so long as both driver and passenger sides are the same. In our case, the measurement came in right at 10.5-inches.

10. Once the brackets were properly located, we traced them on the framerail, including the holes for the welding rosettes. We also marked and drilled the four holes needed on each side for the U-bolts.

11. With the bracket removed we were able to grind off the undercoating in preparation for welding. We also had to elongate the holes a bit to get the supplied U-bolts in place.

12. After grinding the zinc coating off the edges of the brackets, BOS reinstalled them under the Camaro, double-checked the measurements, and bolted them in place. The arrow points to a bolt that passes through the bracket and into the car.

13. We then installed the crossbar. Once everything was in place, the bolts were all torqued to spec. We would like to note that the system came with some of the most detailed instructions we’ve ever come across.

14. The instructions said the brackets could be stitch-welded, but we opted to fully weld them to the framerails.

15. After some quality time with our Eastwood MIG welder, this was the result. With all the perimeter welds and the rosettes, this bracket isn’t going anywhere.

16. It may seem almost like overkill, but these suspension pickup points are under extreme stress, especially in a high-horsepower car that sees track time.

17. For a clean look, we broke out our Wurth spray gun and laid down a few coats of their SKS Stone Guard undercoating.

18. As the name implies, this kit utilizes four bars to locate the rearend. In the g-Bar kit, these have poly end bushings, but we opted for the g-Link kit with its deflection-free pivot-ball assemblies. Zero deflection translates into more precise handling, and given how we drive, we thought this was the way to go. For those who want to make more of a fashion statement, the lower links can be upgraded to billet. Before installing, we set the lower bars to 24 inches and the upper bars to 9.5 inches eye-to-eye.

19. The lower links attach to the Camaro using the existing leaf spring mounts. Ours were pretty hammered, so we ordered up a pair (PN DFB-13L/R, $35 each) from Ground Up.

20. The lower link was bolted to the new mount using the supplied 3/8-inch bolt and then the whole assembly was secured under the Camaro. The other end of the link mounts to the center hole of the bracket on the rearend. Before hitting the road we’ll make sure to hit all the zerk fittings with some grease.

21. We secured the non-adjustable end of the upper links to the bracket under the Camaro using the supplied 3/8-inch bolts, washers, and lock nuts. Both the upper and lower links feature multiple positions to adjust chassis anti-squat. They’re also adjustable to set pinion angle and preload as well to account for wheelbase variations.

22. Using 3⁄8-inch hardware, we installed the billet lower shock mounts. Per the instructions, we started in the second position. The different positions will be used to set the Camaro’s ride height.

23. Before raising the FAB9 housing up under the Camaro, we went ahead and installed the parking brake assembly for the Wilwood disc brakes.

24. For shocks, we’re running double-adjustable VariShocks. These will allow us to dial in compression and rebound at the track. The 12-inch 200-pound springs are installed under tension, so to make life easier, we used Chassiswork’s spring compressor (PN VAS-200, $55) to get everything assembled safely.

25. Per the instructions, we attached the upper links to the lower hole on FAB9 bracket. In addition to setting pinion angle, the upper links also allowed us to center the rearend under the ’68. One full turn in on one link and out of the other moved the rearend housing about 3⁄16-inch toward the shortened side.

26. The shocks came with small stainless steel spacers to fill the gap between the shock eyelets and the bracket.

27. The lower end of the shocks used the same spacer deal. The double-shear lower shock mounts allow for 4.5-inches of ride height adjustment, and the upper shock mount bracket has three positions for shock angle changes. You can also see that we attached the lower link to the second hole up on the bracket.

28. The sliding-link antiroll bar system featured a 5⁄8-inch solid bar mounted to pads that were part of the g-Link brackets we welded on at the beginning of the install. The bar utilizes three detents at each end of the bar to create six incremental adjustments. The 3⁄8-inch rod-ends allow the bar to be set to a neutral, non-preload condition by adjusting the length of the rod.

29. Moving to the brakes, we assembled our 14-inch Wilwood hats and rotors, then safety-wired all the fasteners. We plan on many hard stops so we skipped the drilled deal and instead opted for slotted rotors.

30. The rotors came in Wilwood’s E-coat, which will keep the surface of the rotor not swept by the brake pads looking great and rust-free.

31. Lastly, we installed Wilwood’s new four-piston Superlite radial-mount calipers. The new forgings are stronger than the previous cast pistons and are less expensive to produce. Wilwood was able to pass along this savings, so a kit with these calipers comes out $200 cheaper than the previous version.